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“Curiously enough, though many excellent arrowpoints and other artifacts are made for the“tourist trade” in many parts of the country, the writer has yet to meet anyone who can producea Folsom point” (Howard 1935:110). At the time that Edgar B. Howard made the abovestatement in his Ph.D. dissertation, he was probably the most knowledgeable academic on thesubject of Paleoindians. Commenting on the above quote in his book Folsom, Meltzer points out“he had obviously not encountered McCormick or his work”(2006:254).

Marvin McCormickThe First Modern Fluter

Tony Baker April 4, 2008

A McCormick Folsom PointMarvin McCormick was an early maker (knapper) and seller of arrowheads, and most knappersand collectors know his name. He made thousands of points of all types during his lifetime, buthe was famous for his Alibates Folsom point. He was so skilled that many of his creations,believed to be authentic, have found their way into museum collections and displays. Ipersonally know of three museums that unknowingly house his work.

I first heard the name Marvin McCormick as a child at Baker family gatherings. He was asubject that always came up when the conversation turned to my grandfather, William E. Baker,and his arrowhead collections. As a result, a large part my knowledge of McCormick came fromthese get-togethers and, to a lesser extent, letters and photographs I inherited from my father.Over the years I have considered sharing my knowledge of McCormick via my web site, but justnever got around to doing it. Early in 2008 I discovered I had nine slides of McCormick makinga Folsom point, and the chance to share these was the impetus to finally add this paper to myweb site.

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Stories

William E. Baker, affectionately known as Uncle Bill, was the Cimmaron County ExtensionAgent located in Boise City, Oklahoma during the 1930s and ‘40s. This was also the time of theDust Bowl and The Great Depression, and Uncle Bill was in the center of both storms.Arrowheads were easy to find on the savaged landscape and since Uncle Bill was always on theland working with the farmers, he began collecting them. Over the years his collection grewand, simultaneously, he became quite knowledgeable about the early man archaeology of theregion.

My first story has Uncle Bill seated at his Extension Agent’s desk with an unknown individualsitting on the other side. This unknown individual has brought a number of arrowheads forUncle Bill to see. They are laid out on the desk and Uncle Bill is picking through them. Heultimately separates them into two piles and tells the individual that “this group was made byIndians and that group was made by a white man.”

Another story occurs at the home of an unknown individual. Uncle Bill is looking at thisperson’s arrowhead collection. After a time, the individual goes to his closet and brings out acigar box filled with his prized pieces. Uncle Bill looks at the arrowheads in the cigar box anddeclares that they were made by a modern knapper.

These two stories are quite similar and may be different versions of the same story, but I havenever believed that to be the case. A story that dovetails with these two comes from the archivesof the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (047-11-01-94, Huscher Papers). In September1938 Vincent Dale, a collector and attorney from Guymon, Oklahoma, writes a letter to MarvinMcCormick. He asks McCormick if he had made the “4 Folsom, 1 Yuma, 2 drills” that Dale hadpurchased from him several weeks earlier. McCormick does not respond. Subsequently, inAugust 1939 Dale writes a letter to J. D. Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of NaturalHistory (now the Denver Museum of Nature & Science). In this letter Dale details his purchaseof these artifacts from McCormick and suggests “… this craftsman could explain the growingnumber of Folsom points which have appeared from southeastern Colorado the last few years…”In October 1940 a brief article titled “Archaeological Frauds from Southern Colorado” by BettyHuscher and her husband appears in American Antiquity. Betty was Wormington’s assistant andWormington was the curator of archaeology at the Colorado Museum of Natural History (Baker1995:4, Cassells 1983:251). In this article the Huschers do not name McCormick but write:

At or near Springfield, Colorado, in the “Dust Bowl,” passable Folsom and Yumapoints are being manufactured. These are being ‘unloaded’ on local collectorsand tourists at various towns along the Arkansas Valley, particularly aroundLamar. (173)

Joe Ben Wheat, Paleoindian archaeologist and curator of the University of Colorado Museumfrom 1953 to 1982 (Cassells 1983:249) told me a story at the 1988 Pecos Conference of anothermethod McCormick used to sell his arrowheads. He said McCormick’s kids would go around tothe small towns and stop at service stations, etc, and look for arrowhead collections. They wouldmarvel over the collections and ultimately indicate they, too, had found a few. What they wouldthen show the proprietor was some of their father’s work and soon they would have the

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individual drooling so bad that he would offer $5 or so for them. The kids would negotiate untilthey had the individual worked up to $50 or $60.

The third story from my family history also dates to about these times. Uncle Bill suspected thatMcCormick was the knapper of the arrowheads that were showing up in the area of westernOklahoma and surrounding states. He would, therefore, drive from Boise City to McCormick’shouse in Pritchett, Colorado. Uninvited and unannounced he would almost burst intoMcCormick’s house trying to catch him making arrowheads. He was unsuccessful. Myimpression is that Uncle Bill did this more than once.

Attachments 1 and 2 are copies of letters between E. B. Howard of the University ofPennsylvania and Uncle Bill. These are dated October, 1940 and coincidentally this is the samemonth and year as the Huscher’s article above.

The following is from the second paragraph of Howard’s letter dated 10/25/40 to Uncle Bill. SeeAttachment 1. Note that Howard seems to still believe that a Folsom point cannot be made by amodern knapper.

In this connection, young Porter Montgomery, at Dalhart, wrote me sometime agothat he was convinced that these Folsom points were fakes. I disagreed with thisand he gave me the name of a man in Kansas who, he said, could positively tellme about the matter. I have written him twice but have never had any reply.There is something queer about this whole thing but I am not certain just what itis. It seems to me we ought to follow it up and make some report. It has occurredto me that these points I saw from Texline came from one of the caves nearAlbuquerque since there was a type in there which I do not believe could havebeen faked as it has only been known a short while. A good many people Ishowed these to when I had them here agreed with me that they were not fakes.Porter Montgomery basis his opinion largely on the fact that the patination wasfaked.

Uncle Bill responded almost immediately on 10/31/40 and this is the third paragraph of his letter.See Attachment 2. Note the last sentence. Is this party, who lives in Guymon, Vincent Dale?

My final analysis is that absolutely they are fakes. First thing to attract suspicianis the false patination; second, is that Wilson has learned since my seeing himbefore, the name of the party who sold them to him. This party is MarvinMcCormick. The McCormick boys, according to information, have been makingthe common side-notch and corner notch and selling them the last several years.I have been informed during the last two or three years that they have beenselling folsom and yuma points in groups like the Wilson Group to collectors inboth Kansas and Colorado. Also, to one party at Guymon, Oklahoma.

My last family story is set at an artifact show inColorado. I have the impression that it wasprobably one of the early Loveland Stone AgeFairs. Uncle Bill had been invited to bring hiscollection for a couple of years and this was thefirst time that he was able to attend. As luckwould have it, McCormick also attended thatshow. Uncle Bill corners McCormick and againasks him if he had been making the arrowheads.This time McCormick admits he has been.

In the late 1970’s, I contacted McCormick andmade an appointment to visit him. I did this outof curiosity. I wanted to meet the man who wasfamous for spreading alibates Folsom pointsacross the collections in the country andultimately into the museums. Also, the Bakerfamily stories always portrayed an angry feudbetween Uncle Bill and McCormick and so Iwanted to explore this. Finally, I wanted to learnhow he made Folsom points.

The day before the appointment I drove from Denverin a nearby motel. The next day I met McCormick anhouse, and I remember it was without an indoor toileraised from a chick and it flew freely around the housdoors. The cats avoided the bird.

McCormick was a big man and both he and his wife visit. I inquired about the relationship between him amy surprise his perspective on the subject was much had led me to believe. He even commented on how ksubject of Paleoindians.

To my question on how he made a Folsom point, he athem he used percussion. And, he added that it produfailure rate was too high for him. He said he couldn’had one. He fed his family by making and selling hishe developed a levered pressure system that would prreduced his failures, but it produced a thicker, less reyears some of the universities had asked him to makePaleoindian points. In his desire to be as authentic aspercussion for the channel flake removal on the Folsohad forgotten how to do it, and was forced to stay wi

William E. (Uncle Bill) Baker in 1946

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to Pritchett, Colorado and spent the nightd his wife. They lived in a small simple

t. They had a pet magpie that they hade and out into the yard through the open

were very gracious and seemed to enjoy mynd Uncle Bill who had died in 1957. Tomore amicable than the Baker family storiesnowledgeable Uncle Bill was on the

nswered that when he first started makingced a thin, realistic point. However, the

t get a job during the depression and never arrowheads. So, to reduce the failure rate,ess off the channel flakes. This greatlyalistic point. He also said that in the recent for them study-collections of all the possible, he had attempted to return tom points. However, he discovered that he

th his leveled pressure technique.

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He had one complete Folsom point in the house and he was not real proud of it. So, he sold it tome for $10 and it is the one pictured at the beginning of this paper. He also gave me somechannel flakes and broken preforms. When I left that day, it would be the last time I ever saw orspoke to him.

During the preparation and writing of this paper, I learned of a Roger Crabtree of Boise City. Hehad spent some time with McCormick before he died. I immediately contacted him and he toldme that McCormick told him that he made his first Folsom point in 1929.

Finally, McCormick was “… also one of the first to use heat treatment” (Whittaker 2004:49). Ihad heard this from a number of people, but since I am uneasy about when and where heat-treating was used, I had intended to omit the subject. However, when Mike Collins of theUniversity of Texas read a draft of this web page, he again reminded me that McCormick usedheat-treating. He pointed me to an obscure 1963 article by J. M. Shippee and suggested that Iadd its information. Shippee is reporting on finding a cache near Manhattan, Kansas. It was a“… cache of flint flakes and cores capped by three limestone boulders, spread evenly over a bedof ashes which remained from a fire of considerable intensity.” Shippee further writes:

Speculation as to the association of this cache of flint and the bed of ashes led tothe memory of a discussion by Shippee and Shewey with Marvin McCormick, theflint flaker PAR EXCELLENCE, during a week long visit to the McCormickworkshop in Colorado. McCormick related on several occasions that he found itnecessary to “temper” much of the material he used by burying it and building ahot fire above the deposit, then letting it cool slowly. Some flints needed morethan one heating. Among these were those from the Alibates quarries, thequartzites and the agates. Obsidian could be worked without “tempering.”

In conclusion the writer has this to say, “I still have my doubts about annealingflint but McCormick's declaration and this discovery cause me to ponder thepossibility of preparing flint for flaking by the use of confined heat and a slowcooling process.” (271-272)

Collins believes McCormick may have been the first modern knapper to use heat-treating andasks the readers of this article to inform him or the author if they know otherwise.

Slides

As I stated at the beginning, I found a set of nine slides in a shoebox full of my father’s (EleBaker) old slides, showing McCormick making a Folsom point. I know my father did not takethese slides, and they are not originals. They were reproduced in December of 1967, so theywere taken during or before 1967. My father wrote a brief description on each slide, which Ihave included with each image. Additionally, I have included Bob Patten’s observations ofMcCormick’s techniques that he deemed from the slides . Bob is an experienced knapper and amaker of Folsom points. Larger version of the images can be opened in a separate window byclicking on the images.

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Slide 1Ele Baker: Selecting flint for Folsom point.

Bob Patten: This is the only evidence I have seen forhow McCormick accomplished the early stages of hisknapping. Accounts have focused primarily on hisfluting. He apparently used a hammer to prepare flakespalls of relatively uniform size and thickness. Note theglass shield that Marvin used to protect his eyes fromflying stone debris.

Slide 2EB: Percussion tool used for shaping.

BP: Initial shaping was done by a jabbing stroke witha four-inch long, half-inch diameter copper rod. Theblunt end tells me that primary blows were impactedaxially. Supporting the preform between thumb andforefinger is a very effective way to develop uniformthickness and lenticular edge-to-edge contour.

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Slide 3EB: Percussion shaping and toolused.

BP: The waist tapering to the rearof the hammer was probablydeveloped by skidding obliqueblows designed to clear awayoverhangs and other edgeirregularities. It looks like thepercussor was supported at thebase of the right forefinger. Notehow the percussor is tied by a cordto the glass shield so it could beeasily dropped and retrieved. Finaloutline shape is already established when percussion is complete. Flakes visible on the tarp aresmall and irregular.

Slide 4 EB: Pressure tool and final stepbefore fluting.

BP: Note the extremely batteredgloves on both hands. The pressuretool appears to be a soft nailimbedded in a half-inch diameterdowel. Hearsay accounts haveMarvin removing flakes by liftingupwards, to peel flakes in anoblique pattern from the uppersurface. Obviously, this is wherethe glass shield would be mostuseful. This lifting motion wouldalso place pressure on the first bone of the forefinger, and explains the tape visible in the firsttwo photos.

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Slide 5EB: Striking platform ready forfluting.

BP: Unlike authentic Folsompreforms, this preform is taperedto an acute tip. The platform is notclearly visible, but appears to behighly isolated.

Slide 6 EB: Point in special lead sheetholder and punch in position forfluting.

BP: A right-angle corner of leadprovides soft seating for the flutingblow. The punch is two or threeinches long and could be made ofcopper, but bronze would have lesschance of being buckled by thefluting blow. Note the near-verticaltool placement.

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Slide 7 EB: Hammerstone and punch inposition for fluting.

BP: The punch seems to be solidlyseated on the platform, but thehammer is held loosely byMarvin’s fingertips. There seem tobe stains on the face of the stonediscoidal hammer, indicating thatthe blow is directed axially into thepunch.

Slide 8 EB: Fluted point and channelflakes.

BP: The flute is both full lengthand relatively wide. Many ofMcCormick’s later replicas arethick and have a thin channel thatarcs from end-to-end. I think thatthose varieties may have beenfluted by direct hand pressure.

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Slide 9 EB: Completed point.

BP: The boat shape is typical of aMcCormick replica. Oblique flakescars intruding into the channel ofthe replica pictured at the beginningof this essay are also typical ofMcCormick’s work. Note the lack ofdetailed serial retouch, and thepseudo-nipple left in the base of thecompleted point. Every McCormick“Folsom” that I have seen has beenheat treated to make working easier.

Acknowledgements

When I began to write this web page, Jeb Taylor directed me to Roger Crabtree. Roger relayedthe information that McCormick made his first Folsom point in 1929. Jason LaBelle providedthe information about Vincent Dale. Finally, Mike Collins pointed me to the heat-treatingarticle.

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References

Baker, Steven G.1995 Harold A. Huscher: Pioneer Colorado Archaeologist Crosses Great Divide.

Southwestern Lore 61(2):1-9.

Cassells, E. Steve1983 The Archaeology of Colorado. Johnson Publishing Company, Boulder.

Howard, Edgar B.1935 Evidence of Early Man in North America. The Museum Journal, University of

Pennsylvania Museum 24(2-3).

Huscher, Betty Holmes and Harold A. Huscher1940 Archaeological Frauds from Southern Colorado. American Antiquity 6:173.

**Meltzer, David J. 2006 Folsom-New Archaeological Investigations of a Classic Paleoindian Bison Kill.

University of California Press, Berkeley.

Shippee, J. M.1963 Was Flint Annealed Before Flaking? Plains Anthropologist 8:271-272.

**Whittaker, John C.2004 American Flintknappers. University of Texas Press, Austin.

** Contains additional information on Marvin McCormick.

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Attachment 1

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Attachment 2 (page 1 of 2)

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Attachment 2 (page 2 of 2)

StoriesWilliam E. Baker, affectionately known as Uncle Bill, was thAttachments 1 and 2 are copies of letters between E. B. Howa1963 Was Flint Annealed Before Flaking? Plains Anthropologi